.......It went without saying that my role as interpreter was practically useless: Nine times out of ten, we just approached communications obstacles by busting out Google Translate. So now I'd effectively fucked over my attempt to represent the west. Now, waking up to the sight of that renowned red-haired Iluca in the corner of the room, I realized I'd been given the opportunity to fuck over representing the east.

Earlier, we'd been insistent that Hoson kig with us - he declined, insisting that one of us don his mask so he could get pictures. Cici doesn't wear masks made by others for business reasons, and Jesse didn't seem to vocal about the notion either. Therefore, since I'm perpetually dissatisfied with myself and obsessed with wearing other peoples' things, the duty to represent Hoson as his living watermark fell onto my shoulders. My broad, quarterback-like shoulders.

Thank fuck her cosplay is a hockey jersey, lest I look like even more of a pinhead.

.......We'd be picking up Hoson from the airport later today. Coffee was gifted to me as I dwelled on our predicament. The guest we'd be picking up spoke nary a glimmer of English, while my grasp on Japanese is tenuous at best. And here I was, being entrusted to something resembling translation: This foul-smelling heap of organic misery, whose Japanese sounds like it's coming from a two-year-old, was expected to represent the western kigurumi cosplay community to one of the most influential figures in the hobby in the east. And I'd be the one to retrieve him from arrivals, too, meaning I'd be their first impression of this corner of U.S. kigu. As for our group as a whole, it was up to us to make sure he was well-accommodated here, and got to do what he came here for: Sightseeing, fine dining, and shopping for t-shirts with crummy Japanese writing on them were just a few of the things on the list aside from anything…

.......I don't like LA. It's hot and humid and you can't get anywhere because the drivers are shit. I don't like AX, either, because it's crowded and expensive and it's in LA. Thus, it was with some hesitation that I told my college geometry professor that I'd be absent for a few days surrounding 4th of July weekend, and much regret that I saw how much makeup work would pile up while I'd be at Anime Expo 2015. However, this was not to be a leisurely event. I had the obligation - nay, the opportunity - to help BAKA accommodate a guest from Japan, a kigurumi photographer of some clout. The problem would arise in that he speaks very limited English, whereas the most Japanese our group can collectively speak are such phrases as "I'm a pencil", all of which are spoken only by me.

Day 0 - Wednesday

.......The drive was about as eventful as one would expect - a 45-minute jaunt through the SF Bay Area's uninteresting urban sprawl…

I thought that I would journal and welcome you into the experience and adventure of costume play (otherwise known as cosplay) for the very first time. Many of these terms are new to me, so if you don't know what they mean either, that's ok - I'll try my best to define and describe the terms in my limited capacity. Cosplaying means that a person dresses up in a character from a movie, book and/or video game. I guess you can describe the people who dress in Disney characters at Disneyland are cosplaying. However, cosplay also extends into cultures like the Japanese who have Anime (which is a style of Japanese film or television animation).

I must admit, when I first volunteered to help out at the Anime North 2015 KigurumiOnline booth sponsored by Ride the Pig Studios - I was a little naive. I honestly thought I was going to be in my street clothes handing out flyers or something. Then again, perhaps they were just trying to gently ease me into this whole…

Written by SofaPhotographs by various folks and crediting them all would take too much effort

The following is a chronicle of Anime North 2015 - intended to be the largest gathering of kigurumi cosplayers in North America - pieced together from what bits of my memory I can scrape from off the inside of my skull. Please bear with me as I leave out entire sections of the event or replace them with blatant misinformation.

.......Late May had rolled around. For me, that meant final exams. Anxiety hung in the air around me like my permeating body-odor, and my classmates could smell both of them. They thought they understood: Finals are a stressful affair, in which many fancy numbers on official-looking documents hang in the balance. Yet I wasn't concerned with finals. As far as I could tell, I had that shit in the bag. In fact, my putrescent emissions of worry were directed at what would come afterward, on Memorial Day weekend in Toronto, Canada.